Transcript
Page #1 Dear Reader(s), (1st essay) It is from the cold cell of North Branch Correctional Institution that I pen these words. It is on this day of February.28.2020 that I sit on administrative segregation. It is the coming of my 29th birthday this March that I realize it will be a day longer because of it being "leap year". It is 9:15 pm that I reveal myself as a fighter and journey-man who goes by the name Christopher Cox. 1st hand experiences in my opinion are the ones that will break you, teach you, or feed the fuel that drives the passion of your heartbeat. I know what it feels like to bleed. I have been the victim and the victimizer. I am now paying for the actions of myself 1st, and then the actions of the voices that I suffer from. Currently taking psych medication for Bipolar, Anti-Social Personality Disorder, ADHD, and acute audio paranoial traits I question the "why" of the penal system. Not why I am on them; but why can't I not share my journal with the mental health professionals w/o fear from judgement? Why can't I tell them I felt suicidal last night but today I feel a little better? Why can't I get an explanation for my night terrors and the reason why the medicine I'm on for them "now" only suppresses them a little bit? I have realized that I am angry. I feel most at home with the emotion that has caused so much pain and joy. Only because I can identify with it, unlike the unknown. The unknown of knowing if being happy, joyful, and hopeful will bring about the euphoric feeling of completion. I embrace the fact that I am from NW Baltimore Page #2 City. I also cringe because it is here where I see the beast that resides within my inner core. It is here I am proud to be a fan of the Baltimore Ravens. It is here that every time I need to urinate I have to straight catheter myself with a catheter too big because some medical officials lack the compassion to realize I am or to them once was a human being. Allow me to be honest and tell you all a secret "I cry". I cry, when I realized that my brother Kenneth Cox was killed while I was locked up. I cry, all the time inside and that's one of the reasons why I have my teardrops tattoo'd on my face. I cry, whenever I feel like convincing myself that staying in prison is more better than killing myself or somebody else. I cry, yet it might not look like that because I have 279 tattoo’s that cover my body from leg to face. A speaker of truth when it comes to being real I aim to be. 1st school of thought was the Nation of Islam. 2nd school of thought was the streets and Bloods. 3rd, fourth, fifth and sixth veries from gunshots, robbery, poetry, residential treatment centers for juveniles, children, women, cars, or drugs. Current school of thought, I would have to say is a seeker to really understand the history. (T.R.U.T.H.) The history of why the prison system thinks they can put me or others on long term isolation and segregation and expect us/me to go into general population with ease. How can a person who has shown in action (me) to be extremely violent at times to officials and others be warehoused and then put back around a group of people numbering over anybody but self. How can a prison have it's officials that have "racist tattoos" and others that wear "Bettsy Ross Page #3 T-shirts under their uniforms? How can officials in prison knowingly place a person with a SMI (seriously mentally ill) disorder next to a able bodied person and expect them to keep and maintain their sanity? Allow me to be even more honest. I told my family to order an independent autopsy once I die if I am still incarcerated. I also told my family to increase the life insurance policy on me. I told my family to please donate my brain to "Any" mental health research facility that could help the next person who thinks like me. Only because I realize that I hold a darkness inside of me that should not be present in this atmosphere of existence. This is my 1st hand experience. This is why I can be who I desire to be on paper. This is where I can say I am a active gang member and a poet in the same sentence. This is where I prefer to do my crying the most. This is where I have administratived in North Branch, Western Correctional Institution, Jessup Correctional Institution, Eastern Correctional Institution, Patuvent Institution, and Maryland Correctional Training Center. I have been on admin seg in all of these. I have asked for help in all of these. This to the reader I ask Need I say any more? I've given what I felt should be learned. I speak only b/c I am the one who lives in this confusion state of bliss every day. I don't know if this should pass, yet if it should hear me, feel me, and pray to understand just a piece of my cognitive distortions or.... Yours Truly: Christopher "Chris" Cox 02/28/2020
